Gretchen Rubin says it best in her book The Happiness Project: “Outer order brings inner calm.”

One of my goals for 2011 was to find a routine.  Not like a dance routine (I already found one of those), but like a daily, ordered routine.  Basically following a schedule instead of rushing around like a crazy person.  I thrive on a structured, ordered life and my husband and I both felt like our lives were a bit out of order (or … out of balance?) during the wedding planning.  Since we returned  from our honeymoon, it’s funny how easy its been for us to create a routine and maintain outer order.

When you have a major life event on the horizon and you don’t have much time for yourself, life starts to get a little crazy.  These are typically the types of things that happen (taken from personal experience):

• wanting to use all your down time to relax because you have so little of it
• not getting chores like grocery shopping done because you want to spend free time relaxing
• rushing … constantly
• waking up late
• not having enough time for people … especially those you want to make time for
• not cooking at home because we were always out of groceries (see bullet #2)

But everyone is busy.  I know that.  Everyone is busy in their own way and it’s relative to each individual situation.

Still, my husband and I both vowed that we would get our lives in order and get back to a routine once the wedding was over.

And we have.

And we’re much happier.

Here’s how our routine and life order has improved recently:

• Getting up earlier.  For some reason, I struggled to get out of bed when I always stressed from the wedding.  Now, I’ve been popping out of bed in the mornings.  It’s a great feeling.
• Going for morning workouts.  It’s nice to get up early enough to actually get your workout in before work so your entire evening is free.  Remember how I said I wanted to be a morning exerciser?  I’m starting to get there.
• Getting off at a reasonable time.  Both of our offices have flexible schedules (which I’ve mentioned can be more of a curse than a blessing) and when you sleep late, you get in late, and you get off late.  With this routine, sleep and work eat up most of your day.
• Cooking.  This is a new routine for us.  When I get home from work, I’ll start cooking.  (Even though I don’t really love to cook, I’m still pretty good at it.)  It’s nice to have a home-cooked healthy meal almost every week night.
• Cleaning.  This is the best part of our new routine:  When I cook, G does ALL the cleaning!  It makes me a happy little wife.  So, I come home, cook, feast and then relax. 
• Free Time.  And then there are 2 or 3 precious hours after dinner that are spent however we like.  It’s glorious.  We’ll usually read.  Or watch Family Guy.  Or G will try to turn on Intervention on A&E and I’ll tell him that show makes me sad so we can’t watch it and a remote control war will ensue.  That also happens when he turns it to sports.  Sometimes we’ll take a walk.  Sometimes we’ll have a happy hour with friends.  Sometimes I’ll work on blog stuff or tweet or Facebook.  The best part is that we have free time now because we’ve settled into a routine and we’re not rushing around constantly.  Gosh, I love that the wedding is over.

Back in college, I probably would have thought this routine was mega-boring.  But, today I love it.  Our routine has brought G and I much happiness.  Gretchen Rubin is right.  Outer order really does bring inner calm.

I think this means that I can scratch one more goal off my list for 2011.  Find a routine.  CHECK.

I’m planning to get together a blog post that includes tips for getting into a good routine.  What are your best tips for getting into a daily routine?